Dan Coats: “Mr. President, 200 years ago, our Founding Fathers fought a revolution against what they saw as an imperial government…”

“Mr. President, 200 years ago, our Founding Fathers fought a revolution against what they saw as an imperial government, a government that taxed them to the point of despair and denied their freedom. From this revolution, they built a country on the idea that the preservation of the freedom and the integrity of the common man was the measure of good government. Last year, on the 8th day of November, the American people rebelled once again, this time not against an imperial government but against an imperial Congress. They fought this revolution with the legacy of our Founding Fathers. They fought it with their vote. The American people voted in November to overthrow an entrenched, distant Congress. They forcefully demonstrated that they were very deeply cynical about their Government and deeply skeptical about its ability to create sound public policy. They decided that an institution which could not govern itself could not govern the rest of us. It was a sobering decision because it is impossible to be simultaneously held in contempt by the American public and to be viewed as an institution capable of providing leadership on the major problems facing our Nation. And so the simple conclusion and the simple fact is this. We must restore the faith of the American people in their elected representatives if major problems are to be effectively addressed and endorsed and embraced by the American people.”